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Saturday, 19 February 2011

Rainy Days - You Steal My Sunshine

Sitting on the bus on the way home from work one rainy and cold afternoon in December, Clara Robinson was hit by a wave of realisation that, this Christmas, ten years would have passed since it happened. Her first thought as she bobbed along with the other passengers on the jolting bus was one of horror that she was old enough to remember something real and "adult" that had happened ten years ago. A decade! How could ten years have slipped by since her teenage years, taking her further and further from those memories and scenes that still seemed so vivid and current in her ever-inquiring and analysing mind. Clara then wondered, with some discomfort, whether anything had really changed since that time. Had she really changed? Surely, in some way, she had thought about what had happened back then every day since. In a decade she had understandably achieved a lot, changed a great deal, and had moved on in many respects. Part of her could still be taken back to those times in the blink of an eye and she would feel like nothing had really changed. Even when one moves on from the past, the mind never really lets go of the memories and the questions, always forcing them into the present. Clara felt that all too keenly. However painful it was to think of the past, she realised uneasily that she didn't want to forget it. What had happened back then was part of her and she wanted to keep it at hand to mull over in private and, maybe one day, to do something about it. Standing up and smiling tentatively at the girl next to her to let her pass, she slowly made her way off the bus, shaking her head in the usual way she did when she had let her imagination go too far. It wasn't healthy to dwell on what had happened ten years ago. As she found herself back on the pavement, drizzle coating her hair and the wind whipping it into her face, Clara mused over her reveries, wondering whether people could tell what she was thinking. If they could, she imagined the other bus passengers looking at her in pity, or surprise, and not expecting someone like her to hold such a secret. As the bus rumbled past, Clara crossed the road towards home promising herself that one day she would let these memories and daydreams go. She would do something about it. She would, most importantly, talk about the past in the way that she wanted to and that she should have done all those years ago. For now though, Clara forged ahead, towards home, dinner, TV and normality.